DP wrote:Jacob Ames: "I find it funny that ex-members are eager to say that papers from experts haven't been peer-reviewed. If they have been peer-reviewed, it doesn't matter if it wasn't peer-reviewed by a non-member. But then they all talk about non-peer reviewed works such as Hassan's BITE model, or dubious "historical" works like Vogel's. They seem to want their cake and eat it too."
Indeed.
I'm not sure that Signature Books -- which has published most if not all of the works of D. Michael Quinn, Dan Vogel, etc. -- uses anything like academic peer review.
I personally and directly know, though, that the Interpreter Foundation does use a peer review process that we've very consciously patterned after the mainstream peer review process used across academia. So did the Maxwell Institute and FARMS when I was there.
So it's amusing to see some folks deny that Interpreter and FARMS/Maxwell are peer reviewed and then turn around to treat Quinn, Vogel, and the like as if they had been published by Oxford University Press.
Personally, I think that peer review can be helpful but that it shouldn't be fetishized.
Interpreter's Mission statement 2012, with no details of the peer review process
Around 2017 Interpreter expanded their explanation of their single-blind peer review process:Interpreter Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, early LDS history, and related subjects. All publications in its journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, are peer-reviewed and are made available as free internet downloads or through at-cost print-on-demand services. Other posts on the website are not necessarily peer-reviewed, but are approved by Interpreter’s Executive Board.
Around 2019 Interpreter reversed their decision to use single-blind, and claimed to use a double-blind peer review process:Interpreter utilizes a single-blind peer-review system. This means that the author does not know the names of those who review the paper, but the reviewer may know the name of the author. We chose to not use a double-blind system (where both author and reviewer are unaware of the name of the other). Mormon studies is a very, very small portion of the overall academic ocean. Because of this, double-blind is impractical because most reviewers would recognize authors (at least those published previously in Interpreter or in other academic venues) based on their writing style, subject areas, and other internal clues regardless of whether the author’s name was removed from the paper or not.
Signature Book's process:Interpreter utilizes a double-blind peer-review system in as many instances as possible. This means that the author does not know the names of those who review the paper and the reviewers do not know the name of the paper’s author. At an editor’s discretion, and on a case-by-case basis, an article may only undergo a single-blind peer review. (This is a peer review where a reviewer may know the name of the author, but the author still is unaware of who the reviewer is.) For instance, it makes very little sense to do a double-blind peer review on a paper that is expanded from a previously published article or is based on a public presentation by the author.
All of Signature’s books go through a rigorous evaluation process that includes several readers and may take up to six months. We are not able to respond personally to all queries, especially to unsolicited submissions. Sending an unsolicited submission and not receiving a response within a month or two thereafter means that we have decided to pass on your submission.